Donald Trump and the 14th Amendment – It has been suggested elsewhere that various state secretaries of state are improperly conspiring to keep Donald Trump off of the ballot under the guise of the 14th amendment.
The 14th amendment means what it plainly says, that: No person shall be a senator, or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection…
That means that this is just one of the qualifications or disqualifications that are routinely decided by the authority within a state that determines whether a proposed candidate may be placed on the ballot. It would be no different if a proposed candidate were to be disqualified because they did not meet the age requirement for holding office. The state election authority would make a determination of whether the candidate was disqualified, which the candidate would have the ability to challenge in a court of law.
Wouldn’t it make sense for various secretaries of state to, once a candidate was proposed to be placed on a public ballot, for them to openly state their intention to keep that candidate off the ballot if they thought the candidate was disqualified – to give the candidate ample time to have it determined in court that as a mater of law that they are not disqualified?
That would hardly seem to be a conspiracy. Of course, the way around this would be to not support the proposed candidacy of someone likely to be determined by a state secretary of state, and upheld by a court, to have engaged in an insurrection against the United States while in office. – David Searles